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Question: Saving alpha chanel from multiple layers
I have 3 layers. The first two layers have a .tga background w/ transparency. The final layer is a particle system. When I render in PI, all layers are blending together. When I save output w/ alpha, the alpha channel does not contain alpha blended from all layers. What am I doing wrong?
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5 Replies
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You’re not doing anything wrong. particleIllusion currently only creates an alpha channel from the particles, and ignores alpha in any background layers. So, you’ll need to do your final composite in another app.
Alan.
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I’m somewhat of a novice. Any software you can recommend to do this without too much headache?
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What software do you have available? Most video editing programs like Premiere, Vegas, or Final Cut will let you composite them together. So long as the program supports footage with alpha channels and multiple layers. If you have a compositor like After Effects or Combustion, you can do it there too. This tutorial has a great overview of how to use it with After Effects, and alpha channel information as well.
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Elvis Deane!
The Apprentice Magician’s Guide to particleIllusion
Wilbur of Wumbaberry -
If you’re looking for something simple and hassle free, then a video editor like Vegas or premiere is going be the way to go. but for true compositing, you want to use a compositing program like After Effects becasue it really gives you the abiity to composite. By that I mean that there’s more to mixing particle effects into your scene then just dropping them on top of the shot, and these sorts of things cannot be done in a video editor.
There are a ton of After Effects tutorials here at the cow to get you started.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911
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Thanks, guys.
I will look into that. I’m an Indie video game developer, so I wasn’t as familiar with video editing. I typically contract my artists, but I bought Particle Illusion since it often allows me to build certain effects without hiring or paying an artist for the work. I worked around the problem by just capturing the individual loops and playing them at the same time in game. But, I will definitely learn that as it will save me some resources at runtime.
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